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Is Kyle Sandilands In The Wrong or Did We Make This Happen?

Kyle Sandilands & Jackie O debuted a TV show after X Factor the other night and it was called “A Night with the Stars”, according to Aussie media, it was a complete flop because it had a lead in audience of 1.4million viewers which dropped to 200,000 viewers by the end of the show. Our media are obsessed with television ratings and are also very quick when comes to deeming a television program a complete flop. When we stick the knife in, we do it well. Kyle read one of the scathing reviews the following morning and on his morning radio show and said …..

“Some fat slag on the Telegraph website, sorry, news.com.au, has already branded it a disaster. You can tell by reading the article she just hates us. What a fat bitter thing you are. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. You’re a piece of s—.”

His co-host Jackie O said that Sandilands didn’t take criticism well. He then named the journalist and said: “You are supposed to be impartial, you little troll … You’re a bullshit artist girl. That’s what you are. You should be fired from your job.”

After Jackie O told listeners that the article contained a picture of the journalist, Sandilands said: “You haven’t got that much titty to be wearing that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth girl, or I will hunt you down.”

If you listen to the audio, it’s not as mean and cranky as it comes across in print, it’s slightly in jest and yes, it’s appalling to say what he said but he’s said worse things since his last scandal and I don’t think this will be the last.

This is what Kyle does, he offends a lot of people but I have no doubt that the radio station he’s working for don’t say “Kyle, can you just put on the nice guy hat on a daily basis”. Scandal sells and it gets ratings, that’s why he’s at the top of brekkie radio in Sydney. The scandal has been beefed up in a big way because he attacked a journo and no matter what side of journalism they’re on, News Ltd or Fairfax, journos will protect their own. So the gloves are OFF. Sandilands won’t be forgiven for this one in a hurry.

I don’t know Kyle Sandilands. The closest I came to him was walking past him at the filming of one of the shows he appears on and I was about to walk through a door onto the set and he stopped and let me through before he walked through. I said thanks and one of his ‘people’ said “that was nice of you Kyle, you never let anyone walk through a door before you” he said “I’m a nice guy, it’s what I do.” There was a touch of arrogance in what he said but I’ve never met anyone on tele who isn’t slightly arrogant so I walked on through and thought nothing of it till now.

Sandilands is physically a very imposing figure, he’s enormous. Keeping weight out of it, he’s a very tall guy so when you’re standing next to him he does exude a lot of presence. That’s what celebrities and stars do and how they become celebrities. We the viewers put them on a pedestal and once you’re on tele, no one ever forgets so you’re always “that guy or gal from XX show”. I do have one friend who has a very high profile in radio and she was on Big Brother and it seems she’s been able to get EVERYONE to forget!

Kyle is TV’s bad guy. He’s paid to be that persona. He’s Australia’s version of Simon Cowell, it’s a dirty but lucrative job. You get paid to be hated but because you’re on tele, you’re also adored by many too. I’m sure he enjoys a lot of the attention it but let’s face it, you would HAVE to be paid a lot of money to actively push the buttons of the Australian public, knowing that the vast majority of people think you’re an arrogant arse and the most vocal (who are generally the online community) have nothing nice to say at all. I really don’t think it would be a humbling job when you’re anti-version of Bert Newton and Hamish Blake. Only recently did Kyle admit that he felt overweight and lonely since his marriage break up. Can anyone see a slight bit of insecurity in this guy and perhaps he’s lashing out as a defence mechanism? What he said wasn’t right but it may explain a few things. Clearly he doesn’t cope with being told no but to make sure that his image, brand and career are not completely tarnished, perhaps the people working with him shouldn’t have created the beast in the first place?

In terms of celebrity culture, Australian’s aren’t as bad as America but we do put our ‘stars’ and TV personalities on a huge pedestal. If we watch the programs they’re on, listen to the radio shows they host and buy the products they endorse, then we’re going to have them in our faces for a while yet. The fact is, many people do listen to Kyle and Jackie O and if you tune into their radio show tomorrow morning, they’ll be playing non-stop “We love you Kyle, the media are wrong and you’re just defending yourself from that nasty journalist who hates you” support calls.

No calls for his sacking will undo him. Not even sponsors pulling out of the show (as Holden and The Good Guys did today) will take him off air. I may be wrong but until people turn off their radios, as they did their TV’s, then he will have a top rating radio show. I can’t defend what he said, nor will I, it was immature at best. He’s possibly used to saying that about women because no one would have told him it’s inappropriate and in a room full of guys, a joke about boobs is the norm. I’m not saying it’s ok, but I have heard it all before. A leopard won’t change its spots. There are also a lot of young women who are happy to bed him because he’s a celebrity who have also fed the beast and ‘let’ him treat them like crap. If you let someone believe their own self importance for long enough, they’ll get worse.

With regard to the TV show, our social media junkies and entertainment journo’s need to remember that as viewers, we’re constantly demanding better TV shows on our screens. On twitter we demand more intelligent, entertaining content and TV networks have to be a little bit brave from time to time. In order to do that, they need to try new stuff and sometimes they don’t always get it right. It’s ok to fail and it’s ok for our TV networks to try new formats to see if we will and won’t watch them. We are so hard on any new television format if it fails and as a result I think a lot of people are scared to try new things on TV and we throw stones and blame on anyone or anything as long as it sticks.

It will take a long time for Kyle to live this one down because you’re only as good as your last project when it comes to tele. However, if people are really serious about getting him off the air, the jounos in particular need to think about how they’re feeding the beast and perhaps best ignore the next saga and see if that works. Because there’s one surety when it comes to Kyle, there will be a next time.